as this may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. do not drink alcohol in excess with cialis. side effects may include headache, upset stomach, delayed backache or muscle ache. to avoid long-term injury, seek immediate medical help for an erection lasting more than four hours. if you have any sudden decrease or loss in hearing or vision, or if you have any allergic reactions such as rash, hives, swelling of the lips, tongue or throat, or difficulty breathing or swallowing, stop taking cialis and get medical help right away. ask your doctor about cialis for daily use and a 30-tablet free trial. [ bell tolling ] >> right now on andrea mitchell reports tucson marking the second anniversary of the shooting rampage, as former arizona congresswoman gabby giffords and her husband mark kelly call to action against

violence. michael bloomberg's anti-gun group is offering a new appeal from the mother of the youngest tucson victim. >> i have one question for our political leaders. where will you find the courage to stand up to the gun lobby? >> haggling over hagel. the president's nominee has his work cut out for him, even among some democratic senators. >> i want to get an explanation about his position in regards to iran. he has been very reluctant to support tough sanctions. >> demonstrators protest against john brennan's role in shaping controversial interrogation techniques after 9/11. matsch husband masterpiece.

>> dearest mary. now you tell me all of your wedding plans, and i'll see what i can do to improve them. >> the opening night. a huge success for pbs. nearly eight million fans watched the downtown abby third season premier. we have an exclusive look behind the scenes at the making of the hit series. good day. i'm andrea mitchell live in new york today. white house is now gearing up for two big confirmation fights. the president's nominees for defense secretary and cia director. joining me now for our daily fix chris alis why, msnbc contributor and managing day editor and nbc's chuck todd, chief white house correspondent political director, and host of the daily rundown here on msnbc. chuck, from the white house perspective now, where do they think they their biggest fight? i know that they feel confident going forward that they're going to be able to win the day, but as you saw in our open, even people like democrat ben carden had their doubts, their problems with chuck hagel in particular

for defense. >> andrea, they're awfully confident. number one, they feel very good about brennan. they feel as if that the questions that were there four years ago mainly coming from the left, prankly, not from the right, that those questions have been answered or will be answered. that the things that brennan did create some transparency on drones. will satisfy some in the u.s. senate. on hagel they think some of this is much ado about nothing. they -- there are some that i have talked to that acknowledge that if there is something else, that, you know, that we're in one of these feeding frenzy moments sometimes here in washington the way it can get, and any little thing and all of a sudden the bottom could fall out, because they acknowledge there isn't enthusiastic support amongst some on the democratic party, but they think ultimately will these folks deny the president his defense secretary if all they have is what's out

there? >> now, we -- yesterday, you know, chris alissa, we have john cornyn on. vigorously against former republican colleague of chuck hagel's. how lives are going to change for men and women of the pentagon and how committed chuck hagel is. so she wants to know even though some of the gay activists and some of the interest groups human rights campaign have said that they accept his apology for what he said 14 years ago. >> well, so andrea, i would say that, first of all, i agree with chuck, and i think that what matters here is that the confirmation hearing, i think, may actually matter for chuck hagel. both in terms of the point chuck made, which is that if there is something sort of that we don't know that comes out, this is not a nominee who can probably with

stand something like that. i think it's important that chuck schumer, tammy baldwin, normally if nominees fail, whether it's for supreme court or cabinet decisions, they fail in terms of confirmation because the sort of old party of the president pulls back. with harriet myers it was the uprising amongst conservatives that really doomed her. it seems to me john cornyn is not going to be for chuck hagel or john mccain. i doubt they're going to be for chuck hagel, but they don't have to be -- they just have to not filibuster chuck hagel, which i don't think they would do barring something new here. i think if we can do a respectable job with defending some of his more controversial past statements in these hearings they will ultimately not deny his second pick. sfoo gun control and the whole

gun issue, it's the second anniversary of tucson. we have the hearing, preliminary hearing for james holmes out in aurora, colorado, and awful testimony coming out of that all week. if you are reporting this as well, that the nra has been invited to meet with the biden task force, so that joe biden and his group reaching out to try to at least touch base with, of course, the most vigorous and best organized opponents of any kind of gun lobby. >> it would be shock if anything they didn't. they're not going to have a chance if there isn't an effort to reach out the nra and see if there is any possibility of common ground, and if there's not, there's not.

i'm struck by what could be different. during the whole assault weapons ban, yes, there is always in some of the things that victims -- that the victim families can get involved in a way that can move political debate, but it was still, i would argue, still sort of a political debate that wasn't personal. the newtown families, gabby giffords and mark kelly, folks in aurora, i -- you know, the power of these victims' families that could have on this political debate don't underestimate them. >> i know he was a hero to both of you. first to you. chuck todd, this is such a horrible loss. talk to me about what it takes and what that book means to all of us. >> well, i mean, look, when i first read the book in 1992 and you couldn't put it down.

it was to me like the waet way to find out how -- what made -- how to figure out what makes pole tigs tick. i know chris is that way too. these folks that want to seek power, that want to run government, ewe just trying to figure out who they are, and he did this in a way that many of us, i think, have always been tempted to try to strive for. he set a bar so high. i don't think anybody has even come close to meeting it. in many ways maybe they never will because of just the nature of what we do to politicians and how politicians scrub their own backgrounds to this day, but it was -- that book, you know, if you -- if you finish reading that book and you're not in -- and you're still not enaturalered with politics, then don't -- then get out of it. you know? it's sort of a -- >> it took four years to write about the six men he profiled from the 1988 campaign, and i

was really struck this morning on "morning joe." john hileman saying, and he as a political writer and one of the more -- he turns things -- turns books around much, much faster. he wrote 1,000 pages, richard ben cramer did, and chris alissa, as hileman put it, he went sympathetically behind the eyes i think is what he said this morning of those of his subjects. he really got to understand them and get you know their thoughts. >> i spent a lot of time with richard. i wrote about him for my book. i did a prefile of him in the book in what it takes. i think a lot of us are reporting might not be -- were it not for what it takes for richard ben cramer. the thing i thought was fascinating in sitting and talking to him, he did the bottom up rather than top down approach. when he started that book, he was just a nobody. he had a foreign correspondent. he couldn't get any of the campaigns to return his phone calls. couldn't get any time with them. what did he do?

he went to their home tounz, went and talked to dick gephardt's brother and talked to elementary school teachers of these people, and he did this bottom-up approach where he would then be able to go to dick gephardt -- or go to joe biden and say, hey, i talked to bill who you went to elementary school with. he says hi. that was his going into expose. chuck hit it right. who are these people really? richard ben cramer is fascinating from politics to baseball and beyond about who were these people before they became the people in the national spotlight? he did it better than anyone. >> and, andrea, very quickly, i think it's a remarkable ability as a writer. you get lost when you read his stuff because he puts you in the voice of the person. you know, what it takes is six biographies in one, and each one is written in a different voice. it was amazing how the voice

changed with each chapter that he wrote about a different person. it's up to -- it's like, i don't know if that's -- i don't know if a writer that has that capability. >> well, way too young, lung cancer. thank you both very much. >> joining me now to discuss possible roadblocks to the confirmation, former senator chuck hagel and john brennan, of course, is a former colleague, tennessee bob corker, ranking member of the top republican on the foreign relations committee. ewe going to have the hearings. on john kerry. why are they so trouble and why are you not troubled by the hagel resume? >> i think you know i start all these hearings with an open mind. i did serve with chuck and knew him for a couple of years. we served together on the

foreign relations committee. look, i do have concerns. i do think as your panelists were saying earlier that the meetings and the hearings are going to be very, very important. i think as it relates to senator hagel, one of the areas, andrea, with him in particular that i want to probe is where he is on our nuclear posture. i know it's not something that, you know, people talk about on a daily basis. some of the things he said in the past about where we need to be as a country in our nuclear posture are very troubling to me, and especially at this moment many time when we're supposed to be investing in nuclear modernization as a part of the start treaty, and we're not doing that. that's an issue that's going to be very important for me. i have told people before that a lot of times you hear people expressing concerns, and you can see through it and know that it is about politics or it's about some personal issue that may

have happened in the past. on hagel's part i think there are serious policy concerns, and i think these hearings are going to make a great deal of difference as to whether he is confirmed or not. sfoo bottom line, do you think he will be confirmed? >> i don't know. i really think there are legitimate policy concerns that people are going to have. i'm going start out in a neutral place. i heard some of these arguments put forth, but i've not heard his side and his response, and i always want to hear that. again, i'll be probing more on the nuclear component because i know, you know, in the foreign relations area that's more my area of focus. others will talk about relative to what we've done in the past. look, i think it's going to be a lively process. i think this is going to be one of those processes that is real. i mean, let's face it.

with senator kerry, my guess is it's going to be like a hot mif going through butter, but with hagel, i think this is going to be a very important hearing process and individual process that's going to occur. i think brennan is going to be interesting. i just want to speak to that for a moment. stroo please. >> the white house has portrayed him as a priestley figure that sits in a room in the white house with no windows and decides each day who is he going to execute around the world with drones. i think the left is actually going to have an interesting time interviewing him. from my own point of view that's going to be interesting, but also andrea just the intelligence community? general has not serbed us well. i mean, the kind of briefings that we get on the hill are close to useless. i'm better off watching a

program like yours or even one of the major publications, and i do think that just the intel and how we receive it, how we're able to utilize that for policy, making decisions is going to be an important aspect of what you'll be testifying regarding, and also just how we are going to improve our human intelligence gathering that hack remiss here in the past. >> i want to talk about benghazi first of all. a prisoner was released in tunis. he was the only prisoner. the fbi, i'm told, passed questions to his questioners or interrogators, the locals, but never had direct access to him, and he was released supposedly from lack of hard evidence. does this mean we have no leads on what happened in benghazi, and when will the committee hear from hillary clinton? will it be after the inauguration? >> i had some very good conversation with her chief of staff, and certainly senator

menendez, the chairman of the committee. my sense is, andrea, that her hearing probably will take place the morning of the 22nd. i think they feel she's going to be healthy enough to come in that day. if that were to occur, and, again, this is senator menendez's decision, we could move very quickly, maybe even that afternoon to senator kerry's hearings and have those right after. my sense is the process that most of us would like to see could well take place, and i actually sense especially in talking to her chief just in the last few days that she's anxious to want to come up and testify on benghazi, and i think that hes an important thing for her and obviously for our country, and very important to happen prior to the kerry confirmation. i think it's going to happen that way. >> now, senator lindsey graham has said that he wants to postpone john brennan's confirmations for the cia until they get more answers on

benghazi. do you agree with that? >> well, i mean, that's obviously in another committee and not one i'll be having jurisdiction over. i think the process is going to be that way, and, you know, in brennan's case, you know, i'll let the other committees of jurisdiction decide when those hearings are going to happen, but, you know, i do think it's -- the country needs to understand really some of the shortcomings that no doubt occurred in benghazi. i have seen the security tapes. i have seen the drone tapes. it is pretty -- it is pretty surreal to see how much lack of security occurred at that time. no doubt there was some intelligence breakthroughs both before the incident occurred,

but also just in discussing with us, in fairness, what really happened, it really breaks down your confidence in the intelligence community when the kind of answers they give are nonanswers. andrea, i have found to be the case the only place you ever get any information that's worthwhile is out in the field and talking to our station managers on site in places like libya, like i did right after benghazi. those are the places where you get the real input that matters. most of what we get in washington is pablem, and that's got to change, and it really is -- it really hurts us. it's a liability as policy making. that's one of the areas i want to talk about personally, and obviously the dni is very responsibilitiesible for some of the lack of input that we get that matters, but our entire intelligence community certainly could be shaped up and hopefully

this will be one step along the way of making that happen. >> senator corker, to be continued. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> still to come right here on andrea mitchell reports, budget battles. plus, the fight over women's health rights. four decades after roe v. wade. this is andrea mitchell reports only on msnbc. ♪ [ acoustic guitar: upbeat ] [ dog ] we found it together. on a walk, walk, walk. love to walk. yeah, we found that wonderful thing. and you smiled. and threw it. and i decided i would never, ever leave it anywhere. because that wonderful, bouncy, roll-around thing... had made you play. and that... had made you smile. [ announcer ] beneful. play. it's good for you.

it's now only a bad new year's memory, fiscal cliff, but now the looming debt ceiling and sequester. the u.s. -- joining us me now chris van holland, ranking member of the house budget committee. i hope it's a happy new year, but it looks like you're facing even more deadlines, and they are more perilous, even than the dead lien you all had on new year's eve when you were voting

at 11:15 at night or something like that. let's talk about what lies ahead? i has also suggested that changing the way the cpi is computed for social security, the chain cpi and changing the age requirements for medicare should be one way to go on the upcoming budget negotiations. that's a nonstarter according to most democrats. where is the running room for any kind of room for negotiations? >> well, andrea, first of all, i hope we can now at least ban the expression fiscal cliff from our vocabulary going forward. >> let's hope. >> you are right. we're right back into it, and we're back into it because republicans just judging helped in a bipartisan way, gotten over the fiscal cliff are now threatening that the united states will not pay its bills. that we'll actually default on the bills that we owe our

creditors. as a result we're seeing a manufactured crisis, unnecessary uncertainty in the economy, the president has said that he is very willing to in this with respect to replacing the sequester, which will start march 1st, which are across the board cuts, but he is not going to be politically blackmailed over the debt ceiling. with respect to the sequester, replacing it, we need to continue to follow the same pattern that we did with respect to the fiscal cliff. in other words, and last year. last year we had 1.5 trillion dollars in cuts. we'll have to do additional cuts, but it will have to be combined with additional revenue from eliminating a lot of these tax breaks and loopholes that benefit high income individuals. the same kind of tax breaks and loopholes, by the way, that mitt romney and paul ryan talked about during the last campaign. >> now, one of the changes that politico has been writing about

today in a profile of congressman cotton, tom cotton, one of the freshmen, is that you've got congressman like tom kolton that is a harvard law graduate. when it comes to congress having been supported in the primary by the club for growth, cho gave $300,000 plus. so he has no loyalty to john boehner or to the party. he has loyalty to those who supported him. and those that want to take a posture on those cuts, and he won't be very open to negotiatin negotiating. le difference between a divide the government and a functional government is a willing tons compromise, and for a blueprint on compromise, have you to look at things like the bipart sfwlan simpson bowls commission framework. when i say framework, they said in order to reduce our long tv term deficits we need to do cuts and more cuts, but they also

said we should generate revenue through tax reform. so going forward we're going to need to take that balanced approach. what we're seeing in the house is this group of really tea party republicans who think that compromise is a dirty word. just to give you an example, the most recent data point was the fiscal cliff agreement, which passed with overwhelming republican votes in the united states senate. in terms of house republicans voted against it. and so this is a real problem going forward because compromise is necessary. give and take it required if we're going to move the country forward. we've got at least one group dug in in the house republican caucus that has prevented speaker boehner from negotiating reasonable compromises. >> chris van holland, thanks very much. i suspect we'll be talking about this for the next couple of weeks. >> yes, we will. >> next 40 years after roe v. wade.

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the 7-2 decision that in the fest three months of pregnancy only the woman and her physician may decide whether she may have an abortion. in the second three months all the state may do is regulate abortion procedures. only in the final three months of pregnancy can the state forbid abortion. >> 40 years ago this month the supreme court handed down the landmark decision of roe v. wade. at least 24 states have enacted restriction on access to abortion or reproductive rights. it was a major issue in the presidential and election races. joining us is planned parenthood sophia richards. here we are four decades afro v wade, and it is hard for my young people men and women to remember. 50% of the population was born

since 1973. people do not remember when it was illegal, when contraception was unavailable, and that could be influencing some of the polling which -- mixed polling which shows a lack of support. it depends on how the question is asked, in the exit polls. it was pretty clear. 59% saying abortion should be legal many most -- if not all circumstances, and only 31% disagree. where do we stand? >> well, actually in the most recent gallop poll, i think, andrea, is 77% of the americans believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and it's been consistent ever since roe was decided, and again, for most people in this country, 40 years later, this is an established right that women have. it's an important legal protection, and even what we have seen in the last couple of years is we've had so many attacks in state legislatures and politicians going after women's rights we've seen a resurgence of young women and young men who are saying we're definitely not going to go

backwards in this country. >> at the same time you've got more women in the senate, right? 20. more than there were, but not as many as many people believe there should be, but several of those races really did seem to turn on this issue. in indiana and missouri. >> i think even in the presidential race where we had mitt romney who pledged to not only get rid of planned patienthood and to overturn roe, we saw the biggest gender gap ever in a presidential election, and i think consistently that's what we've seen is that women and men in america simply don't want to revisit this. what they do want to do is make sure we're providing them an access to birth control, to health care, and that's really at planned parenthood what we spend our time doing. >> at the same time even though you are identified with abortion, and that is the sort of headline, 3% of your activities involve abortion. the rest is on women's health, reproductive health,

contraseptive health. in texas and some of the other states, texas you know so well, what is the state of play now given what legislatures and governors are doing? >> well, texas is a really sad example where governor perry has essentially ended the woman's health care program in the state of texas, which has done nothing -- which has nothing to do with abortion. it has everything to do with cancer screenings for women, birth control for women, and he has ended this program sheerly for political purposes, and that's what i think we're seeing such an overwhelming rejection of is folks feeling like we can't play politics with women's lives and with women's health care access. frankly, support for planned parenthood has never been stronger, and i think largely because people do appreciate the kind of health care that we provide. to many women for whom we're the only health care provider that they'll see. >> it's just about a year. february will be a year since this all erupted on our program with the whole issue of planned parenthood, but it seems to me then in your later you are more active and more challenged than

ever. >> i would like to say one of the great things that has this last year, we've been able to provide more breast exams and more breast cancer screenings thaen ever before because of the outpouring of support of folks throughout the country, and that's the kind of health care we appreciate the ability to help women when they need us. >> thank you very much. >> thank you for having me. i appreciate it. >> nice to see you. >> still ahead, new efforts to curb gun violence. the second anniversary of the tucson shooting. plus, arizona congress man ron barber who was elected to fill gabby giffords seat and then left it on his own. the amr exclusive behind downtown abbey. ir i'm gonna have to ask you to power down your little word game. i think your friends will understand. oh no, it's actually my geico app...see? ...i just uh paid my bill. did you really? from the plane? yeah, i can manage my policy, get roadside assistance, pretty much access geico 24/7. sounds a little too good to be true sir. i'll believe that when pigs fly.

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giffords, former congresswoman giffords. today giffords and her husband mark kelly officially launched a new campaign to prevent gun violence. they wrote in usa today in response tie horrific series of shootings that has sewn terror in our communities, victimized tens of thousands of americans, and left one of its own bleeding -- congress has done something quite extraordinary. thanks so much for being with us. i know you think of this every day, but here on the second anniversary of tucson and nothing has been done so far. what is your report for what might come out of the joe biden task force? >> we're hopeful that tomorrow's meeting and i'll get to be a part of myself is very productive. we've seen a strong commitment from the president and the vice president to see something actually done, and the amount of

public support that's also necessary to allow our elected officials to step up is there. i mean, our phones have been ringing off the hook now for a month after the sandy hook shooting, and it's been incredible the amount of new people that want to engage in this. we're really hopeful and really look forward to tomorrow's meeting with the vice president. >> you've become an activist as a result of this life transforming event, the shooting that you were injured, and were also featured in a documentary that you made about virginia tech. what has changed since the 32 -- it's called "living for 32." of course, the 32 people who died there. what has changed in terms of security, do you think, on campuses like virginia tech? >> i think campus security has made a lot of great improvements as to physically on campus and to how to alert students and faculty as to what's going on campus. unfortunately, we haven't seen that same progress through our gun policy. still 40% of all gun sales in this country go unchecked. i mean, that's just unacceptable. that's just bad public policy.

the american people are learning that that's actually the case. i mean, i think most people were like me and thought that we did checks on everybody and were shocked to learn that we actually don't. now with the engagement of the american people, it's no longer a matter of if we can do something, but it's really become a matter of when it will get done. >> the nra is going to be part of these meetings with the joe biden task force. is that a good step, bringing them into the conversation? >> i mean, absolutely. 75% of nra members support background checks on all gun sales. we really hope that the nra speaks for their membership, which is right along the lines with the average american person, and make sure that, you know, things are done for the safety of every single one of us. >> thank you very much, colin goddard. thanks for everything are you doing. >> thank you for having me. >> now congressman barber. he was wounded along side the congresswoman. he has formed a task force to provide advice on mental health issues and preventing gun relate

veals. tell me what you are hoping to accomplish with your task force. >> well, i have put together a mental health task force, the first meeting of which will be this friday here in tucson to really explore what we can do about mental health services, early detection identification of mental illness and what kinds of laws we can pass that will aid in that effort right after the shooting my family and i established the fund. we call it the fund for civility, respect, and understanding. we focused the last two years on addressing bullying in school, which we know has a link to mental health concerns and violence. we're working on mental health, but also at the beginning i want to focus more and more on the issue of background checks, and the availability of large capacity magazines. you know, many tucson where we were shot two years ago today, the young man who shot us -- the

young man who shot us had a magazine with 30 bullets in it. he had another one in his pocket, and two more smaller magazines. in 45 seconds or less 19 people were down and nine of them died. we really have to address not only the mental health aspect of this issue, but the availability of that kind of high firepower weaponry. >> i know you were observing this anniversary quietly in the community and with some of the survivors. you are going to be going back, i think, to the hospital center that treated you. how are you doing? >> personally i'm doing well. my family has been a tremendous support to me. my wife and my daughters and my grandkids. they have been there for me since day one, as has our community. our community has been very supportive of all of us. my leg, left leg, still doesn't have any feeling in it below the knee, but i have my leg, and i have my life, and i have been given a second opportunity in life -- at life to do something

about a tragedy that none of us want to see happen again. now as a member of congress i'm determined that we're going to take appropriate action. i am a strong supporter of the second amendment. i believe in the right to bare arms and the sentencing has upheld it, but the kind of firepower that killed 20 little ones in connecticut we have to do something about that. we have to do something about the availability of background checks. we had this huge loophole. gun shows, no background checks are required unless you're a licensed dealer. when i talk to people in the business of selling guns through stores, they say this is a huge loophole that they would like to see closed as well, and as you mentioned earlier with the previous guest, 74% of the nra members feel the same way. >> congressman ron barber, first of all, thank you for your service, for everything you're doing, and we're so glad to see you as healthy as you are today and thanks for joining us on this anniversary. >> thank you very much for having me today. >> she was a pioneer.

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it's the return of downtown abbey, and season three kicked off this week with a whopping 7.9 million people tuning in to watch the much awaited wedding of lady mary and cousin matthew. it was the second most watched network on sunday night.

this summer nbc's mary went to the set of downtown in london and talked to creator julian fellows. >> oh, dear. i'm afraid the war has made old women of us both. >> surely a kind. what a call that was. >> and what is marvelous is you've got the figure to know maggie smith, who plays -- and she essentially is nostalgic for the old world. whereas shirley mcclain's character, she thinks the opposite. the exact opposite. she thinks all this change is great. >> though downtown abbey's setting is decidedly british majestic, split between the privileged and those who serve them, the starting point for the show creator julian fellows has always been decidedly american. principalably in the form of the leading lady played by elizabeth mcgovern. >> i was reading a book about the american heiresses, you know, the so-called buccaneers who came over to rescue a lot

of, you know, other impoverished families and married into the english upper class, so they became a kind of class within a class. >> just a minute. zoo may think that you have the right to ordain the universe, but in this field -- >> not in this field. in this house, yes, i do have the right. >> joining me now is mary, veteran broadcaster with nbc sports and part-time downtown abbey chronicler. mary, this is just wonderful. what a treat. >> i was among the eight million. >> so was i. believe me. even after the redskins sunday fight came home and watched it and restored my spirits somewhat. so let's talk about downtown. it's a better subject than what happened on sunday night. you know, it's just an extraordinary drama. the acting is superb. when elizabeth mcgovern and some of the other actors came to washington through the british embassy, you would not believe how jaded washingtonians crowded in to shake hands and get a

picture taken. >> the acting obviously, but the writing. jewel airborne fellows, the creator, the writer of it, is all those people that he has created his own self, i think, is the mosting interesting. julian was an actor. certainly not a leading man. he started in this business as an actor, and then had he small parts in small manufactures, and then, you know, the great director robert altman asked him to write godsford park, and then he went back to this period drama, this time that is so interesting, and the good news for all of us, andrea, especially at nbc, is that julian fellows is writing a new show for nbc called "the guilded age," and it's at the same time when all -- when doubt ab wri is happening. it's going to be happening in the united states. people are losing millions and barrons and all of that. i think he writes characters very well.

we all care so much about what's going on what's going on upstairs and downstairs and i'm thrilled. i'm thrilled that the show is doing so well. >> well, and maybe they could recycle the costumes which are superb. tell me about the set because were you in the grand home in which they shoot it? or do they have a stage set in london? take us behind the scenes. >> they have different sets. the day that i spoke with julian fellows was actually in london but we did get to -- we did a story for the london olympics on nobility, royalty, when's the difference between the two and we didn't go to high clair castle where a lot of the story is shot for "downton abbey" but we watched them shoot a scene and it is again such a -- i've been on other sets of other shows. this one is a remarkable production and everything has to be so exact and there's all kinds of people making sure that

julian fellows' ideas are being carried out properly and i think what's so interesting this season is that we saw martha and shirley maclain and dismissive and her cora is, you know, a progressive, as well, but mary, you know, their daughter and just married, the big sunday night special, she likes that old style stuff. she wants to be british. she wants the long driveway and the, you know, the butlers and the valets and needing the forks at dinner time. and so, i just think a lot's going to happen in season 3 and julian fellows is a remarkable fellow. >> well, and we will be there every step of the way. mary, what a treat. thank you. glad you had a good time with it. >> my pleasure. and which political story will be making headlines in the next 24 hours? that's next right here. what are you doing?

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which political story making headlines in the next 24 hours? chris scillizza is with us. hamid coming to washington. that will be controversial because they have to talk about troop withdrawals, the pace, how many troops get left behind and his recent criticism of the administration policy. >> right. set to meet with secretary of state hillary clinton, defense secretary panetta, andrea, and a fascinating time as the replacement potentially of chuck hagel nomination in the news and critical question. all troops out in 2014. do we leave a residual force there? what's it look like? it's still -- it's been out of the news but certainly an issue that is politically complex and the next defense secretary will have to address. >> i should quickly point out i had a misreading of an editorial. senator corker did not endorse

hagel. he praised him and said he's open to the nomination. thank you very much, chris. that does it for us. my colleague tamron hall has a look at what's next. hi, tamron. >> hi. great to see you. major developments in the gun control fight. we're learning an nra representative will attend tomorrow's big meeting at the white house with vice president joe biden on gun violence. plus, 24 hours before that meeting, congresswoman give fords launches a new campaign aimed at the gun lobby and gun control advocates have planned a gun appreciation day just before the inauguration. also, coming up, more on graham's call to delay the brennan nomination as cia director before he quote gets new information from the administration on the benghazi attacks. the wing and a fractured beak. surgery was successful, but he will be in a cast until it is fully healed,

possibly several months. so, if the duck isn't able to work, how will he pay for his living expenses? aflac. like his rent and car payments? aflac. what about gas and groceries? aflac. cell phone? aflac, but i doubt he'll be using his phone for quite a while cause like i said, he has a fractured beak. [ male announcer ] send the aflac duck a get-well card at getwellduck.com.